[1] Assuming
you can get past the relentless violence and the equally
relentless sexism, Mission: Impossible IIhas a lot to teach about the purpose of violence
in action films, particularly in its relation to the
ritualistic theme of scapegoating. The film is the latest
offering from legendary Hong Kong director John Woo, and
it features his trademark: stylish ultra-violence.
Choreographed bullets fly by the hundred, glass shatters
in graceful cascades, and slow-motion fireballs bloom
like chrysanthemums. But behind the aesthetic of mayhem,
something very complex is going on: rivalry, scapegoating
and male relationships.

[2] The film revolves
around a pair of men, one of unmitigated good and one of
unmitigated evil. At a superficial level, the film plays
out a ritual separation of human sin from human grace in
which the two vessels are set before us and one is
labeled as all that is greedy, cruel, brutal and ugly:
Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). The other signifies all
that is noble, heroic, and beautiful: Ethan Hunt (Tom
Cruise). The entire action of the film leads to the
moment when the two men square off in single combat, with
good sure to triumph over evil and expel it from our
midst.

[3] Yet there is something
else thats going on here. It is something that
comes directly from Woos Hong Kong "Heroic
Bloodshed" films, something that sheds light on the
ways that violence animates the type of male
relationships that structure a sexist society. Although
the two men are supposed to be diametric opposites, they
actually share a great deal in common: they work for the
same organization, sleep with the same woman, go to the
same places in search of the same secret virus, and (at
several points in the film) even share the same face.
Although there is a romantic plot (of sorts) between
Ethan Hunt and Nyah Nordolf-Hall (Thandie Newton), the
film is really about the relationship between Hunt and
his rival.

[4] In Woos Hong
Kong films, mens relationships take an unequivocal
center-stage. Fables of trust, honor, and friendship are
played out amid blood-splattered gunfights.
Mission:
Impossible IIleaves most
of the gore behind (enough, apparently to earn a PG-13
rating despite the double-digit body count) and puts on a
show of heterosexual romance. The essential action,
however, is still about the hero and his rival. Ethan and
Sean are rivals for Nyahs body, for the secret
virus, and eventually for the right to walk away alive.
Their very rivalry bonds them, and makes the working-out
of their relationship the center of the film and the
engine that drives the action. The high stakes of money,
bio-terrorism and erotic possession of the only woman in
the film are all secondary to the violence that binds two
almost perfectly matched men.

[5] This is the paradox at
the heart of the film: the men are diametric opposites,
but inherently and immutably linked to each other. They
fight and die in a homosocial fantasy where women exist
only to be shared by rivals and to betray the unwary,
where your worst enemy could have been your best friend,
and the glowering villain peels off the smiling
heros face. As in the backyard ritual combat of
boys, "good guy" and "bad guy" are
just convenient forms into which the same characters can
be placed. Whats really important is that they are
not girls, that they are not sissies, that they are not
boring grownups. The result is a great fiction that lies
at the heart of Mission: Impossible IIand at the heart of much "real-world"
violence.

[6] The fiction is that
there really exists some significant difference between
the pure and the impure, between the "good guy"
and the "bad guy," between the scapegoated and
the scapegoaters. Woo plays with that fiction, casting
his hero and villain as polar opposites who have far too
much in common for mere coincidence, who desperately
desire the same woman, the same virus, the same gun, and
who, at the moment of truth, fly through the air into
each others arms as the world explodes around them.

[7] Fulfillment is in
violence. Violence is the force which both brings men
together and gives them the excuse and the means to deny
their intimate connection. In the same way that
pornographic films use sex to tell stories of mens
power, action films use violence to play out the dynamics
of male bonding, exclusion and dominance. As long as
societies are structured on mens relationships of
power, ritualized, sacred violence will continue to
mediate these relationships, and we will see life and
films like Mission: Impossible II.